Relation de quelques circonstances de la vie d’un pieux hermite ...

This manuscript is a fair copy, carefully revised, with corrections inserted on slips over the original text, of the account of the pilgrimage made by the Franciscan hermit Henri-François Bertrand to the Holy Land in 1775. He left Paris on foot in late 1774 for Marseilles, where he took ship for Palestine in January 1775, returning to France in January 1776. Bertrand’s life as a hermit was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII during his first pilgrimage, to Rome, in 1768. He took up life in a grotto in his birthplace, Bucy-le-Long, but conflicts with the established church in Bucy ended with his imprisonment in Paris for some months. It was after his release from prison that he made his vow to undertake the pilgrimage.

Apparently, the present work was compiled by someone who knew Bertrand and persons in his circle and had access to his papers. However, the hand changes in the middle of page 246 in part 1, as if a new scribe took over, and in the supplements. Part 2 contains letters and other documents copied by the scribe from the originals in Bertrand’s possession. These include an eye-witness account, on pp. 162-163, of the massacre that followed the capture of Jaffa by the Mamluk Abu al- Dhahab in 1773. Pages 191-192 and p. [1] in part 2 contain details of Bertrand’s life after his return from the East, including his imprisonment in Dijon in 1798 during the anti-clerical persecutions in that year.

Bertrand visited Cyprus both on his outward journey to the Holy Land, 20-27 February, and on his return voyage, 23 July to 10 August 1775. See pp. 152-153 and pp. 266-270 in part 1. The documents in part 2 include a letter on pp. 171-173, written from Cyprus dated 25 February.